


Slow Dancing Aliens

by MaxxR



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Dean Has Powers, M/M, Pre-Slash, but if you blink you'll miss them, implied powers, there is a lot of looting, this is going to have a sequel one day I swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-22
Updated: 2012-11-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 06:09:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaxxR/pseuds/MaxxR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - It’s the zombie Apocalypse. Dean and Gabriel team up to travel from Lawrence to California where their brothers are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Dancing Aliens

Dean Winchester remembers his mother. She died when he was four, and Sam has always told him that it just isn’t possible for Dean to have memories of her. Most people don’t remember being four years old, but Dean is certain. 

He remembers tomato-rice soup, and how there was always music playing in the house. He remembers laying on the sun warmed carpet of the living room floor, Hey Jude playing softly, curled up next to his mother’s swollen belly, whispering stories to his unborn brother. 

Dean remembers the smell of her perfume - like orchids, he discovers years later when wandering through the perfume isle of a department store threw him into fits of memory. He remembers it all clearly as he lies dazed, and probably concussed, on the floor of a Target. 

There is some kind of commotion nearby; shelves being knocked over probably. The store is overwhelmed by people, snarling and crazy. A few feet away, the broken body of a store clerk lies in a bloody heap. The guy tried to eat him. Fucking eat him. 

Dean crushed the poor clerk’s head in with a KitchenAid mixer. Not before the kid managed to do some damage of his own, of course. Dean still feels the phantom pressure where his skull slammed against a shelf. There is blood on that shelf now, he can see it from where he's fallen. He knows it’s his. 

He tastes blood in his mouth, too. He knows it’s from the clerk, but he’s too busy choking on horror to really delve into the implications. That was somebody’s kid he just bludgeoned and his wide vacant eyes continue to watch Dean as the torsion inside his skull begins to take it’s toll.

As his eyes flutter closed, Dean wonders if he’ll have the chance to apologize to his mother for dying young.

The noise moves closer. Flesh hungry shoppers have no need for stealth. Dean tries to prepare himself for his impending death by devouring, but he’s so dizzy all he can really do is pass out lamely. 

John would be so pissed if he was still alive. So much for Winchesters being survivors. 

 

\---------------------

 

It’s the nausea high in his stomach that convinces Dean that he’s not dead. His head is pounding, and his face is damp. With a shaky hand he reaches up to find a wet cloth folded neatly atop his forehead. 

“Better leave it, man,” a voice warns lightly. Dean feels as if he’s somehow deep inside his own body, miles away from the person sitting next to him. The reply he manages to gargle out, through a truly economical use of syllables, is less words and more crude grunts that he hopes will communicate the many questions he has for the stranger hovering just outside his peripheral vision.

‘Where am I? What happened? Who are you?’ are all things he doesn’t quite manage to ask, but hopes are implied anyway. 

“I don’t know shit about first aid, but they’re always using cold wet clothes like this in anime. It’s gotta count for something right? I don’t suppose you’re dying less now?” 

“N’fected?” Dean just about manages that one. 

Really, they don‘t know what’s going on, but if those people are suffering some kind of legitimate zombie infection it isn’t unreasonable to not want to be one of them. 

“I don’t think so. I’m not sure if that’s how it even works, but I‘m pretty sure if you were going to be a flesh eating zombie, you would be by know. It‘s been hours.” 

That was nice to know. “Safe?” Dean tries to sit up, but fails. 

“Dubiously. Dunno how long broken sliding doors, and barricades made out of plastic shopping carts and will hold out a hungry demonic horde.”

The honest answer is more reassuring than any platitude. Dean was raised paranoid and he never feels safe. Not since his mother died in a house fire, and his father -- still suffering the effects of PTSD from ‘Nam -- decided to raise his sons as nomadic road warriors. That his rescuer doesn't think they are truly safe means he'll be more alert and less likely to be caught off guard when the flesh eating bastards laid siege to their hidey-hole. 

“I hope you weren’t here with someone you liked.” He hadn’t been. “Most everyone is dead. The other survivors are burning bodies in the receiving area. They were going to toss you onto the pyre too, just to be sure, but I stopped them. So… you know. You're welcome and such.” 

Dean’s reply is another garbled mess that could translate as ‘hey, thanks for saving my life’ or ‘god, you like to talk!’ depending on if the stranger was a glass half empty or full kind of guy. Then, since it seemed like the thing to do, he passes out again. 

 

\-----------------------------------

 

Dean almost knows he‘s dreaming. One second the epiphany will be nearly formed, and the next he‘ll forget entirely, but the colors aren’t quite right, he feels too small, and his father is alive. That wrongness disturbs him. 

They’re at Missouri's. She's making red beans and rice, and scolding John for some fool thing or another he’s done. This happened for real. Déjà vu twists his heart, and the pain is more real than the memory. Dean can’t smell the food, but he knows that he did once. He can’t hear the adults talking, but he knows what will happen next. He’s sitting at the table feeding Sammy bananas and cheerios, because red beans makes him gassy. John laughs, the man’s smile a rare treat for Dean, and goes to fetch something. The leaves of one of Missouri's many lush spider plants brushes his cheek as he leans over a drawer, and just like that he’s gone, lost inside himself. 

In real life, Dean took his father to the sitting room. He was so small that John’s limp hand had swayed next to his ear. In real life, Dean had sat with John, his head resting on the man’s leg, and waited for his father to crawl back out of the rabbit hole. It was the last time he cried while doing so, the dark spot on John’s knee a source of embarrassment for them both. 

The dream is different. Dean doesn’t take his father someplace to suffer quietly. He takes his father’s head in his tiny hands, and draws him back out of those memories of blood and humid jungles. Dean can see the broken parts of him, where the pain festered and began to rot, and he cleans it, heals it. 

 

\---------------------

 

“Y’know, I don’t think you’re suppose to do that.” 

An indeterminate amount of time later, Dean wakes to a concerned face hovering in front of him, and he suddenly has more to identify his savior by than just a voice. The man is a little plain actually, with brownish hair and thin lips, but his concern for Dean’s general well-being is genuine and appealing. 

“Do what?”

“Fall asleep. You have a concussion right? I think on TV they make people with concussions stay awake.” 

Dean can't remember if people with concussions were suppose to stay awake or sleep, which was probably because of the concussion, since he is certain he does actually know that. Great. “Better not chance it.” At least his speech is less slurred, that is progress anyway. 

The stranger nods and sits back. “I’m Gabriel.” 

“Dean.” 

There is a pause as both men stare at each other with the uncomfortable air of newly introduced strangers who aren‘t yet sure if they have any business talking to each other. Dean is all for manly silences, but the quiet is unwelcome this particular instance. He needs something to distract him from what is happening. “What time is it?” 

Gabriel’s laugh is the kind that isn’t actually laughter, his reply desperate. “Almost ten, I think. I left my cell at home, and none of the clocks here say the same time! It’s late anyway.” 

“Late it is.” It had still been early when Dean'd left his apartment for the store. 

The night stretches out long, and restless. Nobody sleeps. Gabriel stays with him most of the time. Some of the others come to inspect him for themselves, and when they’ re satisfied that he isn't going to try and eat them, they leave the two men alone. No one wants to bother with the hurt guy. Dean knows that if all hell breaks loose in the store they’ll leave his dizzy ass for dead. 

Well, maybe not Gabriel. Dean isn't really sure what his deal is. He has been pretty focused on helping Dean not die. Maybe he just needed something to do, something to focus on besides the horror going on outside. It's clear he is just as freaked out as Dean is, so he can't really blame the guy for wanting a distraction. 

“Hey, you thirsty?” Gabriel disappeared a few minutes earlier, only to return with an offering of bottled water, and sugary snacks. Dean dozed a little, despite himself, while the other man was gone, and is finally feeling better. “I feel weird,” Gabriel continues as he hands over some water, and a snickers. “I don’t… I don‘t do all nighters. Eight hours man; I love my sleep. It’s important. My internal clock is all messed up. It stopped feeling ‘late’ hours ago, now it feels ‘early’. I kinda feel sick.” 

 

“So sleep.” The look Gabriel gives him is filled with skepticism. “I’m fine. You should get some sleep, were not exactly in an impenetrable fortress here. If we have to run you’re going to need the energy for it,” Dean says.

“Yeah…” 

Dean is still sore, his head throbbing dully, but he relinquishes the display bed Gabriel put him on so the other man can rest. He needs new clothes anyway. There is dried blood on the stuff he is wearing. 

He invests the least amount of time possible on procuring new duds. Jeans, underoos, t-shirt; it isn't exactly rocket science. If the skinny kid in the store uniform has a problem with Dean’s blatant stealing he doesn't say so. 

The other survivors are nervous around him, but also in general too. It looks like they are preparing to bunker down for a long haul. Dean doesn't care, he isn't staying. He has to find Sammy. Hell, high water, and zombie hordes a like won't stop Dean from finding his little brother. Sam is his responsibility, had been since their mother had died. With no other living relatives, and no real friends (Except perhaps for Bobby Singer, out in South Dakota. Dean has no doubts that the crusty old veteran is flourishing, bunkered down in his fortress-like house, and putting his excessive arsenal of projectile weaponry to good use.) Dean only has Sam, and he needs to get to his baby brother. 

Best case scenario, what ever is happening in Lawrence is an isolated incident, and Sam is safe all the way in Palo Alto. Worst case, Sam is putting his not inconsiderable survival training to good use at last. That the youngest Winchester could be hurt or dead is not even a consideration. Sam will survive. 

So, a road trip to Stanford then. Dean claps his hands together in the universal ‘let’s get to work’ gesture (several nearby survivors jumped like startled rabbits), and sets about gathering supplies. There is no way Dean is backtracking to his shitty little one room apartment. All of his favorite stuff is in the car anyway. The first thing he grabs is a large duffel bag, and he wanders the aisles grabbing anything that jumps out at him. He spends a good ten minutes staring at a display of wireless radios wondering which would be the least crappy, and another ten trying to figure out of the store sells guns. It doesn't. 

Eventually Dean wanders back to the bedroom display. Gabriel had since pulled off the blankets Dean had been lying on (the colorful comforter covered in flecks of dried blood) and made it up anew with a sheet set for little boys. Thor’s mighty hammer covers most of Gabriel’s face, only his eyes, open and worried, are visible. 

“What happened to sleep?” Dean sets the heavy pack down by the foot of the bed; Gabriel watches him, his eyes weary. It won't matter to anyone else that Dean isn't staying, but Gabriel had saved his life, the man deserves a goodbye. “So listen, um, thanks for helping me, and all that, but… I’m not staying. I have to get to California.” 

This gets Gabriel’s full attention. The man shoots up like he's been stung by something, wide eyed, and grabs a fist full of Dean’s new shirt. “You have to take me with you.” 

“What?”

“I have a brother in San Francisco, you have to take me with you!”

“I… yeah, okay.” 

In spite of the tough guy act Dean isn't much of a lone wolf. He's always worked in a team, either with Dad, or with Sam; usually both. Granted it was typically for things like credit card fraud, hustling pool, or just getting his father through the next fit of post traumatic stress alive. The point is, Dean doesn't like working, or travelling, alone. It probably would be better anyway, to have someone sitting shotgun.. 

“Awesome!” Looking rather pleased, Gabriel flops back down, and snuggles under the covers. Without anything better to do Dean wanders off to gather more stuff. 

 

\----------------------

 

The time passes slowly, unremarkably. The others avoid Dean, except to watch him wearily from behind displays of boxer shorts, or pyramids of all-season tires. Probably, they expect him to go nuts and start eating everyone, and even if Dean didn’t have Sam to think of he’d high tail it out of there before they start offering human sacrifices to appease God. He doesn't really blame them for their fear; he hadn’t realized how much of a mess he’d been until he’d helped himself to the Family Restroom (with the single toilet and sweet locking door) and saw for himself in the curiously stained, slanted mirror. He might’ve thought he’d turn into a flesh eating zombie, too. Still, that doesn't stop him from flipping a most righteous bird at their creepy, mistrustful eyes peeking out from behind the Barbie dolls. 

By 4pm (ish, rather, since they still can't figure out what the damn time was, but most of the time telling devices present seemed to agree that it was some time around four, if not exactly for how long) Gabriel is up again, munching on pilfered Cracker Jacks -not his first bag if the crappy temporary tattoos on his hands and face were anything to go by- and helping Dean wander the store to steal stuff for their suicidal journey to California. With any luck they won't have to stop and brave gas stations turned zombie death traps at least until Lincoln.

That is to say, of course, that Dean’s beloved 1967 Chevy Impala is still safe and unstolen in the parking lot just outside. And it better be, because if his baby is gone then zombies will be the very least of everyone’s worries. 

By some time after 8pm (8:05pm according to the cat shaped clocks, 8:57pm according to the alarm clocks, 8:17pm according to tills 1, 7, and 9, and 3:58am if till 5 was to be believed, but Gabriel insists that one isn’t spoken to by the others, and just wants attention.) they think they’re as ready as they can be, and are crouched behind the makeshift barricade the others are pretending is keeping them safe and trying to gauge what it’s like outside. They’re not leaving through the front doors, don’t want to have to rip down the barricade. The emergency exit will serve their getting the hell out of there purposes, but they still want some idea of what the parking lot will be like. 

They don’t see anyone immediately in front of them, but given their extremely limited view, that doesn’t mean a damn thing. For all they know, there is a whole army of flesh eating monsters waiting, gruesome and bloody like in the movies, just around the corner. 

“I don’t want to fuck around with getting the trunk open. We gotta do this smart.” 

Gabriel is quiet beside him, completely serious for the first time in the hours Dean has so far known him. 

“I’ll carry the bag, get the door unlocked. My baby’s a classic, none of that automatic douche-baggery, so I need you to watch my back. Be ready to beat back anything that comes at us.” 

“Do I have to be the beat-backer? Why can’t I carry the stuff?” 

Dean’s sideways glance at the other man is accompanied by a raised eyebrow that has been perfected by frequent use on Sam. Gabriel nearly killed himself trying move their supplies not ten minutes ago. “Because you can’t dude. I’ll unlock the back door, you can crawl to shotgun if you want, better than running around to the other side.” 

“Wish I had a real shotgun.” 

Dean completely agreed. 

 

\-----------------------------------------

 

It is sometime between their third box of cheez-its, and laughing like morons over crappy tabloids, that the preaching starts. The two men ignore the low murmurs at first -content with their plans to get to California in mind and ready to go at first light- but the unmistakable din of worship creeps under their skin and ruins the mood. 

“You ever seen The Mist?” 

“Read it.” Dean doesn't watch horror movies, the screaming had been likely to trigger John’s fits, but he reads more than people tended to give him credit for. 

“Even worse. I’m not gonna lie, that,” Gabriel points towards the section of store the others have set up as their rest area just as a chorus of Amens rumbles out, “is making me very uncomfortable.” 

“Maybe they’re just praying for loved ones.” Neither quite believe it. One voice rings out from the shadows above the others, frantically describing the horrors they have wrought upon themselves as punishment for their sinful ways. God is angry, the man announces, and just as the time of water had purged the world of sin, so now had come the time of fire. 

Dean hasn't so much as stepped foot inside a church since middle school, but that certainly sounded like a load of bullshit to him. 

“Three guesses where this is leading to.” Gabriel tugs Dean up out of the Lazy Boy he's sprawled over. “We should leave now.” 

“Dude, it’s dark, we can’t see what’s out there.” 

“Dean, they wanted to burn you earlier. Look, I know that guy preaching over there. Zachariah is a class one a-hole: always had to be the boss of the other kids. Those people are scared, and you’re the wild card in here. If Zach-y boy says God’ll give them a second chance at life if they tie you to a pole and end you Salem style, they’ll do it.”

“You don’t know that! This isn’t a movie. People don‘t just do that! And why am I the ‘wild card‘?” 

“Because a zombie bled all over you, and we all know what that means!” 

“It doesn’t mean anything! This. Isn’t. A. Movie!” 

“Tell that to them.” 

Dean half expects the strangers to come creeping out of the shadows, rope and torches in hand, but they don't. They stay on their side, praying and chanting. All playfulness gone, Gabriel turns and heads for the broken sliding doors. Dean thinks the man is way more uncomfortable with bible hour than is normal. If he were Sam he’d say something, but he’s not, so Dean just watches as Gabriel wanders anxiously toward the front doors, and peeks outside. 

The barricade is made primarily of shopping carts, bags of road salt, and awkwardly stacked boxes in various sizes. With a sigh Dean follows after the man, glancing over at the glowing emergency exit sign. He may not be on board with navigating zombie infested roads in the middle of the night, but if Gabriel wants to go back to surveying the wilds of the parking lot, well there were less useful things to do. 

Dean is paying more attention to Gabriel’s discomfort than to the outside so it’s little wonder that the zombie that suddenly smashes wetly against the glass in front of them catches him off guard and makes him jump.

“You still wanna take off?” 

Gabriel curses colorfully, flinching away from the doors. There are more of them, shuffling clumsily toward the building. The glass and pathetic barricade are the only things separating them from the dozen or so undead Lawrence natives. If there are more of them by the emergency exit they’re screwed. 

“What are you doing?!” Both men turn to see a young woman: blond, pretty, and panicked. 

“It’s not what it-” 

“You’re going to let them in! You’re going to kill us!” 

“No!” 

She runs, crying out for the others. The melancholy murmuring stops. After years of Dad and Sam, Dean is usually good at weathering shit-storms. He figures he can handle the surge of terrified survivors even if it comes to blows. He's more worried about the monsters behind him. Gabriel looks like he’s going to be sick 

“Gabriel…” Dean doesn’t get the chance to tell the other man to calm down. Suddenly the strangers come pouring out of the shadows to surround them. They look scared, angry. Some are clutching bibles (where did they get bibles?), others baseball bats. In the center of the small group stands a balding man with a smug expression. Dean knows immediately that he hates the guy. 

“What are you doing?” A woman near the front speaks first, encouraged by the others at her back. “You’re trying to kill us.” 

“No!” The wet thump of a mangled face against the glass behind him doesn't help. “We just want to leave.” 

When Dean was a child people always compared him to his father, saying how alike they were. Dean never wished it was true more than right then. John had a way about him, a presence. He was a leader. When he was there with them, in mind and body, people respected him, listened to him. From the looks on their faces, Dean isn't quite having the same effect. 

“Right, that’s why you're letting the zombies in!” 

“That’s not-” 

“They’re trying to kill us!” 

Anger spikes from somewhere deep in Dean’s stomach, to catch sharply in his throat. Swallowing it down leaves a bitter pain behind; he's always hated being interrupted. Behind them, a drum beat of limp hands smacking against the glass begins in earnest, the creatures’ desperate moans the chorus. 

Monsters at his back, enemies in front of him. Dean isn't pleased at all with the situation. It is pure instinct, born of years of practice, when he slips into a loose fighting stance, his body angled to less of a target, knees bent slightly. He knows he'll have to fight or flee, and he's getting more and more weary of the standoff by the second. 

“Come on people! No one is trying to kill anyone. We were just looking outside.” Gabriel holds his hands up in supplication as he takes his turn to speak, clearly trying to be the peace keeper. Most of the others look nervous, unsure, but none of them back off. Baldy lifts his chin in silent challenge, and Dean wants very much to knock out his teeth. 

“No! You..! You’re one of them!” The woman points an damning finger in Dean’s direction. “I saw it! I saw the blood. The monster’s blood all over you!” 

“Lady, if I was going to become a zombie don’t you think I would have by now?” 

The woman’s shrill answer, more of the same frantic accusations, is drowned out by the sound of glass breaking, and inhuman moaning no longer muffled by the weak barrier. Gabriel curses, the others scream, baldy looks like he’s going to shit himself, and Dean swivels around only enough to see the mess behind him before springing forward, away from the undead threat. 

Not two feet away sits the backpack he and Gabriel just spent hours filling, he doesn’t bother to reach for it. It’s twenty pounds of dead weight now, only going to slow him down and get him killed. It’s a damn shame to lose it though.

The undead aren’t so much pouring in as oozing. Clumsily pushing through the broken doors, their limbs tearing on the jagged glass. Most of the others have scattered already, but a few remain. The shrew stays, praying at the horde with all the violence she can muster. 

It’s Gabriel’s voice that makes Dean turn back, several feet of linoleum already between them. Two beefy looking guys have grabbed the man, and are pushing him back toward the zombies. 

Dean isn't the hero type, he's never wanted to be. Sammy is the bleeding heart of the family, tearing up while watching World Vision commercials. Not Dean, he had enough to think about just keeping their little family unit from crashing and burning. So, it’s as much a surprise to him as it might have been to anyone who knew him when he sprints back toward the danger. 

He watches through tunnelled vision as the creatures grab Gabriel, as the dark maw of the closest one opens wide and closes down on the soft part of the Gabriel's right shoulder. Gabriel screams, and Dean struggles to push the creature’s head off him with the heel of his hand. Skin and gore go with it, Gabriel sobs once, quick, with pain, but Dean doesn’t allow him time to freak out. They run, adrenaline pulsing through their veins. 

Gabriel stumbles, his right arm tight against his body, his t-shirt bloody. Dean grabs his left arm and tugs the man forward. It’s rash, and stupid. For all he knows the man is infected, will turn on him any second, and that’ll be it for their little adventure. He can’t leave the man behind though. What if the movie rules don’t apply? What if Gabriel isn’t infected, just hurt? He'll die there, eaten alive or neglected, bleeding out on the floor. 

The bright red emergency exit marker glows before them like a sign from God, and they dash towards it. The door is hidden away in a little alcove filled with parked scooters. It’s nothing for Dean to vault over them, while Gabriel scrambles to keep up. The zombies have a considerably more difficult time with the obstructions, and it buys them just enough time to burst out of the building. The fire alarm shrieks horribly, announcing their escape. 

Dean’s beloved Impala sits on the other side of the building. The parking lot is flooded with lights. Somehow, in spite of the zombie-fucking-apocalypse, the electricity is still on. For how long remains debatable, but Dean doesn‘t begrudge the one small advantage being able to see allows him. He had wanted to leave in the morning. Not to get chased out by flesh eating monsters during bible study. 

They round the corner only to come to a clumsy stop, suddenly face to face with a dozen more broken bodies, close enough he‘d feel their breath on his face if they had any. On one side of him is the white-washed brick of the building, on the other is chain-link fencing. The zombies stand still, their dead eyes staring with incongruent focus for things that shouldn’t be able to see. Beside him Gabriel vomits from pain. 

Dean steps back, the creatures don’t follow. It isn’t right. The ones inside pushed through several inches of glass to get to them. The zombies’ attention is pulled away from the two men sharply as several of the survivors come running toward them. From the other side of the corner they can’t see the threat. The zombies shuffle past Dean and Gabriel intent on their new prey. 

“Wha-what the hell?” 

“Come on.” They can figure out why they weren’t just eaten alive in the relative safety of the car. Their pace is slower as they cross the parking lot. A steady stream of undead lumber toward the store, summoned by the prospect of fresh meat. The creatures watch the two men pass, but make no move on them. 

“God…” Dean can’t tell if Gabriel is cursing or praying, but he does a little of both himself when the Impala finally comes into view. She’s sitting directly under a lamp post, the yellow light shining down like a halo. 

“Almost there. Hold on.” So much for their plan, for playing it smart. All those hours of preparing for their glorious mad dash to freedom for nothing. 

Dean puts Gabriel in the front passenger seat first. The man looks pale. A cold sweat is sticky on his forehead, but the bleeding on his shoulders has already stopped. Looking at the ripped mess of the wound Dean doesn’t think it should have.

Around the other side, Dean is reaching for the door when a small child crawls out from under the car. Like the others had, it stares at him with wide eyes. It’s missing its right leg, and has to crawl by dragging itself forward by its hands. The creature stops and chatters wetly at him before dragging itself toward the building. 

In spite of possibly wanting to kill him, Dean still hopes the others survive. They’re just people after all, scared and confused. About to do something horrible granted, but people none the less. 

Time to go. Dean wastes no more time getting the hell out of there. As they weave between parked cars and zombies alike Dean’s discomfort only grows. Some of the dead turn from their shuffle toward the store to follow the car clumsily. 

“I dun…don’t like this.” Gabriel’s voice slurs. Whatever is happening to him is happening fast. 

“Shit. Dude, you better not turn into a freakin’ zombie.” 

 

\---------------------------------------------

Not a half hour later, Dean has to pull over on I-70. Ignoring his own throbbing head and horror induced nausea, he reaches over to check on Gabriel. The man is passed out, his head resting on the passenger's side window. Dean pulls the man over to get a look at his wounded right shoulder. 

“Fuck…” in the soft glow of the car’s overhead light Gabriel’s wound looks even worse. A chunk of skin and muscle is just gone, the man’s clavicle is visible, lesser blood vessels broken. Thinking of old first aid courses and how bite wounds should be cleaned right away, Dean sets to work. 

Gabriel’s shirt is ruined, and Dean cuts it off him with the knife he still keeps in the glove box. There is a half empty bottle of water in the cup holder. He'd like some peroxide, or hell, some vodka to clean the wound with, but water will have to do. 

Sparing just a moment to mourn the possibility of getting gore on his baby’s upholstery, Dean uses the few undamaged edges of Gabriel’s ruined shirt to clean the man’s shoulder. 

 

\--------------------------  
The sun is rising, the sky pink, as Dean sits in his idling car and stares at Topeka’s Welcome sign. It shouldn’t have taken the entire night to drive from Lawrence to Topeka, but I-70 had been crowded with abandoned cars and smoking pile-ups. There hadn't been anyone else actually driving on the road, but Dean had to pick his way around the stalled vehicles and wrecks. 

There had been zombies on the highway. Some still in their cars, others limping or dragging themselves in random directions. One, standing in the middle of the lane, bright green deathhawk standing tall and clashing strangely with his graying skin, waved sluggishly as Dean drove by. 

Now that they have finally reached the city, Dean can't help but debate whether or not he should actually drive in. He needs sleep and something to drink. Gabriel needs medical attention, or failing that, painkillers and something to bring down his fever. Only problem is that they are horribly unprepared to face a city that is potentially filled with flesh eating monsters. His shotgun is passed out from pain, and he's so tired himself that he's seeing double. The undead of Lawrence had been terrifyingly accommodating. Would Topeka be the same, or would they be driving to their deaths?

Beside him, Gabriel groans pitifully so Dean takes the plunge, in a manner of speaking, and drives them into the city. The roads are significantly worse inside the city with more accidents and abandoned cars blocking the way. He has to take side streets. Without knowing the town, he spends too much time driving around, trying to find a drug store. 

As opposed to Lawrence, Topeka doesn't appear to have any power. Dean isn't sure if that is because the power grid has finally gone down for everyone everywhere, or if Topeka just sucks. Either way Dean has enough foresight to grab the flashlight from the trunk (the one his Dad had always insisted they have, and that neither Dean or Sam had the heart to remove). 

The Walgreens is open, but dark, and Dean wastes no time getting down to his looting. He's about to jump over the prescription counter near the back (in addition to whatever he might be able to use for Gabriel, he hopes he can use some things to barter with later), when he spots an old lady standing there in the dark. She turns her head to stare at him, eyes milky with cataracts, her arms a ruined mess. Behind the counter, a technician in a bloody lap coat lumbers up to the counter, and presents a rumpled white package to the old woman. They garble at each other for a few seconds before the technician wanders off again. 

Dean decides there is more than one drug store in the world, and gets the hell out of there. 

Gabriel is still asleep in the car when Dean finds his way outside. He pulls out of the parking lot and makes a left hand turn, hoping for the best. It’s another impossible bout of driving before they come across a Motel 6. The dashboard clock reads 7:24am, and they should really keep going, get to the next town, but Dean has been driving all night already. Any longer and he’s going to start seeing double. So he kicks in the door to one of the motel’s rooms, and drags Gabriel’s sorry butt inside. The door frame splinters, but there is a latch on the inside that’ll keep the door closed, if not actually secure. 

“Where’re we?” Gabriel slurs as Dean puts him on one of the queens. He sounds as bad as Dean did two days ago. 

“Topeka.” 

“S’not very far…” 

“You’re a mess, and I’m tired. I just… need a break. Lemme see your shoulder.”

Lost in a fever haze, Gabriel lies pliant on the bed as Dean cuts off his ruined shirt and sets about cleaning his shoulder properly. With all the dried blood gone the wound doesn’t look quite as bad as it had during the night. The bite looks smaller. Dean could have sworn that the zombie had ripped off more flesh than that. He cleans it carefully; it is gruesome, but he doesn't rush. By the time Dean finishes sealing gauze over the wound, Gabriel looks better. Asleep, but more relaxed, as if his fever has broken. 

After that Dean is too restless to sleep. He checks the door, and windows, makes sure they’re secure. Not that the zombies have given them much trouble since the first night, but that could still change. Outside a portly woman in a cleaner’s uniform stumbles around the lot occasionally trying to open the motel room doors, though she can’t quite figure out the door knobs. She’s got a brightly coloured duster in one hand, and she’s missing half her face. Dean shuts the curtains, and tries to ignore the churning in his stomach. 

“I've never liked horror movies,” he comments sickly to Gabriel’s sleeping form. 

 

\--------------------------

Dean doesn’t so much sleep as lay there and listen to the undead housekeeper scratch at the door every hour until noon. Around ten Dean comes to the conclusion that these are the worst zombies ever. As much of a pain in the ass the ones that broke into the Target had been, at least they were monsters. Dean was raised like childhood and boot camp were the same thing. He’s certain he could deal with monsters, but those people walking around out there? That was different. Left to relive their mundane routines: old ladies collecting prescriptions, house keeping trying to do her job, commuters just trying to get home. They were still people, horribly killed, flesh eating people. He kind of felt… bad for them. 

God, Sammy better be alright. Leave it to his stupid brainy brother to become a zombie that goes to class forever.   
\----------------------------

 

“Looks like a rabbit.” is the first thing Gabriel says when he wakes up. 

“What?” 

“The jizz stain on the ceiling.” 

“Aw, dude!” Dean is up like it’s his bed the questionable stain is under. 

“Are we still in Topeka?” Gabriel sounds better. “I can’t believe I didn’t die. That thing fucking ate me!” he was up too then, picking at his shoulder, ripping off the bandage with an exaggerated cringe. 

“The hell?” the wound looks remarkably better. Unnaturally so. Muscle and sinew regrown, the skin new but raw. It shouldn’t look like that, they should still be able to see the bone. 

“You are one hell of a medic Dean.” Gabriel is poking at the wound gingerly. “So, uh, I don’t suppose my shirt survived too?” it hadn’t. 

They cover the wound in fresh gauze to protect it, then make a break for the car. They’re too anxious to stay put, and they’ve nothing to linger for. With any luck they can make it to Lincoln by sundown. 

“So what’s for breakfast, Deano?”

“Don’t call me Deano.”

“You think there’s a McDonalds open somewhere?”

“No… I really don- How are you even hungry?” 

“I haven’t eaten since last night! I need three square a day, man.” 

“Your mom’s a square.” Dean mumbles under his breath as he watches an armless hobo stumble across the street in front of them. A woman with half her throat torn out tugs a kid clumsily in the opposite direction. The kid’s guts drag on the sidewalk behind them. As Gabriel lets loose a raspberry in reply Dean thinks he’ll never be hungry again. 

“I think there’s a K-Mart around here somewhere. We should probably go looting again; we left all our ill gotten goods back in Lawrence.” Though he isn’t in the mood for much else but driving Dean has to admit Gabriel has a point. 

“Lets at least get me a shirt huh? It’s a bit chilly out.” The man’s tone implies mischief, and Dean takes the bait, glances over, and is treated to the sight of Gabriel demurely covering his nipples with the tips if his fingers. He blows a kiss, and it’s too much: Dean startles himself laughing, but it’s good. 

They find the K-Mart easily enough, and given that the doors are wide open, they figure the place isn’t housing any survivors. It does have some undead shoppers pawing at bloodied shopping cards, but while Gabriel picks out the best looking superman tee, and Dean pilfers bottled water by the dozen, they don’t bother them. 

They make several trips, and fill the trunk. It’s not as much fun as the night before in Lawrence, but with the threat of being cannibalized dubious their moods begin to lighten. Or maybe just Dean’s. Gabriel was hopping about as if he wasn’t worried at all. Dean didn’t believe it, not quite. By the time they were finished the man had devoured three packs of twizzlers, and four chocolate bars. 

“You should watch the sweets dude. No dentists after the zombie apocalypse.” Dean gives him a toothbrush and paste, and Gabriel flips him the bird but pockets them anyway. Dean ignores the fact that he sounds like Sam, and just because, gives the zombie stuck behind till three a wad of bills. It grins wetly at him, and Gabriel looks green at the sight of the creature’s broken skull. 

\------------------------------  
Dean sips a luke warm energy drink while they navigate their way through Topeka, and it isn’t anywhere near a satisfying as a good cup of coffee. Naturally, Gabriel is sipping his through a novelty straw. Dean isn’t sure just where he found the little pink paper umbrella either. 

“Tell me about your brother.” 

“What?” 

“Your brother; you know the guy you're driving to Cali for?” 

Dean pauses, it isn’t like he needs to stop and think of what to say. Get enough beers in him and there is a good possibility he wont stop talking about Sammy. The truth is his brother is pretty much his whole world. Dean is a people person, not quite a people pleaser, more like a people needer. As a kid he use to wish John would meet someone, fall in love, get married. That way maybe they could live in one place, and Dean could have more brothers, or a sister. Dean’s always wanted a sister. That never happened, and now Sam is all the family he has in the whole world. 

“Sam’s my family. All of it. It’s just the two of us y’know?” he doesn’t quite mean to say it, but he might as well be honest. Maybe Gabriel even understands, they are travelling together for a reason. 

“Not really. My family is ginormous.” 

“You said ‘brother’ before. As in singular.”

“Yeah, but Cassie is…totally hopeless.” Gabriel’s crooked grin makes Dean think that the other man does get it, big family or no. 

“Sam’s at Stanford: studying law. The first Winchester to go to college since World War II.” that’s pride in his voice, and he doesn’t try to hide it. Not that it matters now, really. No people (no living ones anyway) no crime, no lawyers. Still, Sam had set out to do something, to be better, and he succeeded. 

“Cassie sells ad space; it‘s the weirdest thing ever! Our parents thought for sure he‘d be a priest, what with his being so damn devout and all. He was pretty much their last hope after the rest of us decided to do something fun with our lives. 

Best memory ever: when Cassie told the folks he was moving to San Francisco. Standing in the living room in that doofy trench coat…” Gabriel trails off chuckling to himself. 

“Maybe it was vengeance for naming him ‘Cassie’.” 

“Ha! Maybe! We call him ‘Cassie’ out of mercy though. It’s really ‘Castiel’.” 

Dean’s a little speechless; he knew a girl named Autumn-Rain once, but compared to Castiel that doesn’t seem quite so bad. 

“I’m pretty sure mom named him that out of spite. She wanted to name him Raphael, but Uncle Josh took the name for his kid first. She was so pissed! So here she has the twins Michael and Lucifer-”

“What? Seriously?”

“Yeah, can you believe it? We call him Luke, because well…”

“No kidding.” 

“So yeah: Mike and Luke, and your’s truly. I‘m pretty sure there are way more archangel names too, depending on what reference your using, but mom went with Castiel. Freakin’ angel of Thursday. ” 

“Wow.” Dean has never been so thankful to have come from a family with normal names. Gabriel nods solemnly.

“So… Winchester eh? Like the rifle?”

“Hell yeah!”

“Bet a name like that get you a lot of game.” 

Dean leers playfully and winks. Gabriel sucks back the last of his Rock Star noisily. 

 

\---------------------------

They press on in a vaguely Lincoln direction. The roads get worse as they go, and they spend so much time finding alternate routes that it’s dark long before they’re even near the town. They have to pull over; Dean’s concussion isn’t completely gone, and he’s embarrassingly worn out. 

“I could drive for a while.” Gabriel offers tiredly when Dean cuts the engine, and their plunged into darkness. 

“I’m fine, just need a break.” 

Of course he could easily take a break while the other man drove, but Dean had always been reluctant to let anyone drive his car. Even Sam didn’t get special privileges when it came to Dean’s baby. 

“Whatever.” 

Dean closes his eyes, ignores Gabriel’s surly voice. They’re both tired and worried, no need to pick a fight over driving when leaning back and resting feels so damn good he could cry. 

 

\------------------------

When Dean was fourteen Sam was ten. His brother is tiny, and smart, and wherever they go waitresses and teachers fawn over him. Dean knows he’s never been as cute as Sammy, but he isn’t jealous. Even though that’s exactly what his father accuses the day Sam falls and breaks his arm in two places. 

 

“I know you don’t get as much attention as your brother, Dean, but this isn’t the way! He’s younger than you. It’s your job to look out for him!” 

He knows it’s true. There isn’t anyone in the world more important to him than Sam. He only looked away for a moment, honest! 

Sam isn’t mad, and it’s impossible for Dean to begrudge his brother everyone else’s unfair reactions. Sam only wants his brother there when they have to set the bone, and it’s only ever Dean’s messy signature Sam wants on his powder blue cast. 

At the time, there isn’t anything he can do to ease his brother’s pain. He holds Sam’s hand, until the meds kick in. 

In the dream Dean gathers his brother to him, holds him close, and he’s still so tiny. Like a fragile baby bird, all delicate bones, and big brown eyes (nothing like the large sturdy man he grew up to be). Dean makes the hurt go away. Mends the broken bone and pulled tendons, and Sam looks up at him with that old little brother adoration again. Something warm wells up inside of him, and it startles him awake. 

 

One eye, and one empty eye socket stare unblinkingly down at him from the front windshield. There is a wet sort of squeak from beside him, as another ruined face presses against the driver side window. The Impala groans and pops under the weight of dozens of undead bodies pressed against it, piled on top of it. 

It is, quite possibly, the most horrifying thing Dean has ever seen, and for a moment he fears the sudden and unwanted emptying of his bladder. 

“They’ve been like this for hours.” Gabriel whispers from beside him. The man’s eyes are wide, and Dean wont admit he feels some relief at the sight of his fear. Gabriel had seemed to be taking things too well up until then. Joking and snacking, like the whole world hadn’t just gone to hell. 

“What are they doing?” Dean’s voice is sleep rough, but quiet. Like speaking too loud might anger their undead company.

“Watching? They haven’t tried to break into the car or anything. They’re just… watching us sleep.” 

“That is so creepy I can’t even deal with it.” 

“Dean? Please get us the fuck away from here.” and that’s panic in the man’s voice. Dean reaches for the ignition, and hopes that the engine’s loud purr doesn’t anger the bodies piled up on top of them. 

The zombies don’t seem to have the foresight to climb down, or shuffle away before they’re slowly run over. The ones on the back tumble off, the ones pressed to their sides drag their fingernails across the paint as if to hold on. The wet pop and crunch of their bodies under the Impala’s wheels is awful, but the strangest thing is that none of them struggle too much. They’re not rabid like the ones in Lawrence. They watch the car as it gains speed and drives away, their arms out stretched, moaning lowly together, but they’re not frantic. 

“Is it me, or do the zombies like us?”

“Like us?” 

Gabriel holds his wounded shoulder protectively. “If they wanted to eat us, they’d have busting into the car, wouldn’t they? They didn’t have much trouble getting into the Target. So why don’t they want to eat us now?” 

“I’m not complaining. I do not want to be eaten alive.” 

“No…” the man is pensive, scared, the way he hasn’t been yet. Maybe he’d been trying to hide it before; Dean gets that. Knows that not everyone wants to broadcast their true feelings for the world to enjoy. It’s nice to see Gabriel acting more appropriately though. It humanizes him in ways that Dean hadn’t realized he’d lacked before now. Except…

Except his friend is frightened, and Dean has had so few friends, maybe only the one now. Without hesitating he reaches over and offers Gabriel a hefty pat on his good shoulder. 

“I have no idea what’s going on, but that isn’t new. Think about it this way: not being eaten will be a huge advantage for us while we’re on the road. Right?” 

“Yeah,” the man perks up a little. 

 

\----------------------------------

 

They stop at the first safe looking stretch of road they find. It’s almost half a mile between pile ups, and they figure the chance of zombie interaction is low enough to chance answering nature’s call. They bolt from the car like it’s on fire, and return a few moments later with significantly less urgency. 

Dean stretches tall, lifting his arms in the air and pulling the muscles in his back satisfyingly. Gabriel does much the same, but accompanies the act with half hearted bitching. 

“Never again, Deano. I’m not sleeping in your tiny freakin’ car again.” 

“Tiny? That‘s rich coming from you, midget.” 

“I resent that!” 

“Good!” 

“Lemme drive.”

“Get in the car shotgun.” Dean climbs into the driver seat once more, but Gabriel mutinously crawls into the back, kicks what supplies they have on the seat to the floor and stretches out as much as possible. 

In Lincoln they steal cigarettes and vodka, to barter with later if they find any other survivors. They camp out in the Wal-Mart, rig a TV and microwave to a couple of emergency generators so they can watch a movie and eat a warm meal. 

Lincoln’s dead start showing up in awkward shuffling flocks, and the two have to force the sliding doors closed to keep them out. They watch the zombies watch them from behind the glass until the microwave chimes. 

“I think I’m becoming desensitized.” Gabriel comments absently later as they watch Rapunzel rappel with her own hair. 

“Probably.”

“I’m not gonna lie. Those things freak me the hell out, but now that they don’t seem to want to eat me, they aren’t so bad.”

“I like the hungry ones better.” 

“Really?”

Dean doesn’t elaborate, he’s spent too much time already thinking about it. He’s sick of zombies, and smoldering car wrecks, and gore. “Can we not talk about zombies right now?” 

Gabriel frowns, watches the movie unsatisfied for a moment. He’s a talker, that’s for sure. Worse than Sam in some ways. Dean’s stomach flips uncomfortably as the thought of Sam. It’s already been two days, it doesn’t normally take him this long to travel 1800 miles, but with the roads crowded with wrecks, it’s slow going. For a moment Dean is almost dizzy with quiet anxiety; they should be driving right now. They should be racing down the road like the devil himself is on their asses. Not holed up in another department store, sitting in brightly colored blow up chairs watching cartoons!

“Hey grumpy, do your medic thing.” 

“What?”

Gabriel shucks off his shirt un-self-consciously, and presents his shoulder for Dean’s inspection. 

“I don’t have any-” the other man holds up a red first aid kit, drops it in Dean’s lap, and settles in for some fussing. 

“You planned this.” Dean accuses mildly as he opens the kit to look at it’s contents. 

“Moi?” Gabriel is the very picture of innocence, which Dean has already learned means the man is completely guilty. 

The smaller man likes attention, a lot. It’s a new thing Dean has noticed. Not just talking, but touching too. If he were a cat he’d purr every time Dean changed the gauze on his shoulder. He says as much as he sets out the fresh gauze. 

“What can I say? I’m a middle child. I take attention where I can get it.” 

“You whore.” it’s easy to tease him. The man loves a mean joke, and can handle just as much crap as he can dishes out. Gabriel offers Dean a look over his shoulder that promises all the best kinds of inappropriate fun. Dean rips off the old gauze a touch too roughly, and ignores the pout it earns him. 

The wound is an unsettling mystery. It’s only been two days, give or take a few hours, since the zombie took it‘s pound, but it’s already nearly healed. He should have needed stitches; probably should have died of blood loss long before now. There is only a small area still open, no more than the size of a quarter. The rest is pink and raw, but healed otherwise. 

“You’re some kind of freak of nature, you know that?” 

“I love you too, Deano.”

“I mean it! Look at this! How are you healing so fast?”

Gabriel glances awkwardly at the bite, looking nervous. “But, it’s good right? I don‘t exactly want to go my whole life missing a chunk.” 

“It doesn’t happen like this…”

“I thought it was you, anyway.”

“What?” 

“Your medic thing. I don’t heal this quickly. No one does. I’ve been blaming you for my freakishly speedy recovery.”

“How the hell could it be me? Anyone can change gauze.”

“You have magic fingers?”

“Magic fingers vibrate.” 

Gabriel doesn’t reply with something dirty, and Dean knows it’s only because it’s too easy. 

In the morning they have to find another emergency exit. The front is completely blocked by zombies. Dozens of them just looking in, or at least pointed in the general direction of the two men inside. Dean doesn’t think their eyes are actually good for much anymore. 

\----------------------------------------

They decide to push for Laramie, but only get as far as Sydney. 

“Let me drive man. It won’t kill you if we take turns driving and you know it.” 

“We need gas.” Dean can tell his companion is quickly getting annoyed with his blatant aversion to letting anyone else drive, but as long as Gabriel isn’t actually picking a fight over it, he’s willing to be passive aggressive too. They really do need gas, though. 

Finding a gas station is easy. It’s getting the gas that’s the problem. Dean circles the pumps once, trying to remember if he ever learned how to steal gas from a broken pump. Having no helpful ideas of his own, Gabriel wanders off to explore the station itself, and returns a few minutes later with an enormous cherry sucker and a skin mag. 

“So, I’m thinking we didn’t really think this all the way through. How do these things actually work anyway?”

“The fuel is in tanks underground, and it’s pumped up.”

“Neat. We need power to get these working don’t we?”

“It helps.”

“We could always siphon gas from the other cars.” Gabriel gestures to the multitude of vehicles left where they were parked, never to be driven again. “I’ve kind of always wanted to try that. You ever steal gas from someone’s car before, Deano.” 

“Yes. Also, don‘t call me Deano.”

A pause. “Really?”

“Yes really, don’t freaking call me that.”

“No, not the name thing, the gas thing! You’ve really stolen gas?”

“It sucks.”

Gabriel’s grin is wide, and a little bit evil. “Well well, you’re quite the delinquent. What other shenanigans have you gotten up to?” 

“Credit card fraud mostly. Breaking and entering. I impersonated an officer once.” Under normal circumstances Dean wouldn’t brag about his less than reputable past so easily, but the way he saw it if all the cops were zombies did it really matter anymore? 

There is a tense moment while Dean watches the grin fade from his friend’s face. With each second phrases like ‘just kidding!’ go unsaid Gabriel’s eyes get a little wider, until at last he turns away, pops his sucker in his mouth and mumbles: “It’s like I don’t even know you.” 

They decide to siphon fuel from the other cars for the time being. They hike around until they find a hardware store, and a hose and pump. After that it’s a matter of finding enough cars that they can actually siphon from. 

“This is a lot more complicated than I thought.” Gabriel sounds impressed, it‘s obvious the man expected that they’d just go around sucking fuel from cars as easy as you please. 

“People don’t actually want gas stolen from their cars, Gabriel. Didn’t. Whatever. Point is, it’s not suppose to be easy.” 

“Fair enough.” 

Suddenly Dean’s face splits with a grin. “So, my dad had this friend who owns this salvage yard. He has a bunch of old junkers, and a few years ago someone was stealing gas from them. So Bobby, that’s my dad’s friend, he fills the tanks of a few of them with raw sewage.”

“Raw-no.” 

“Yes!”

“You can imagine what’s happened.”

“Aww, gross!” 

“The dude puked all over the sheriff when she came to arrest him!” 

“Oh man, that’s amazing!” They laugh, sharing a moment of glorious schadenfreude.

 

\------------------------------------------

With every mile west the hordes get thicker, small groups growing into larger ones. Hundreds shuffling in the same direction in a great undead migration. They don’t care about sticking to the roads, they stumble forward in the most direct rout, over grass and gravel. It makes driving easier, at least. 

“Now we know why the towns are so empty. Why do you think they’re all going in the same direction though?” 

“Survivors.” Gabriel answers grimly, holding his shoulder (now almost completely healed). “Didn’t they swarm the Target looking for us? They’re hungry; they’re looking for people.”

“We’re people.” 

“I don’t think that counts.” 

Dean doesn’t answer. 

“I’ve been thinking,”

“Dangerous.”

“Dean. I’m serious. I…think we’re infected.”

“Dude, we’re not zombies.”

“No, but we’re not exactly appetizing anymore are we? They attacked us before, in Lawrence: you got bled on, I got bit. Suddenly we’re not on the menu, but we were once.”

“So what, we’re carriers or something?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on, but doesn’t it make sense?” 

The impala slows to a stop before Dean even realizes he’s taken his foot off the gas. 

“Dean?”

 

It’s deja vu. The hard chill at his back, the sour twist inside his stomach, his nose is burning, and he realizes this is exactly how he felt when he realized he would never see his mother again. Six months of stunned four year old silence, waiting for the most important person in his tiny world to come back, broken suddenly by five year old realization. It’s the same, this unbridled horror, only he’s too old for temper tantrums, and his father isn’t there to hold him until he’s cries himself out anyway. 

“God…” Dean gets out of the car, needing air, open space. He’s panicking, and vulnerable, and the zombies just pass him by. Hundreds of them, and they don’t stop or look at him they way the few left in the towns did. Thousands, every person who lived in Kansas, Nebraska, and maybe more, all dead. 

“God…” Maybe he hadn’t survived. He’s standing alone in a sea of corpses, and maybe the same thing that killed them was burning inside his own body too. 

“Dean.” Gabriel’s hand on his back is warm with life. “I don‘t think we’re all that special. What are the odds that the only two people who aren’t going to turn into zombies just happen to live in the same town, and go to the same store, at the same time just when the zombie apocalypse is about to go down?”

Dean turns to look at the other man, but can’t bring himself to speak. Doesn’t think he can around the burning in his throat. 

“And if you and I are… like this. Maybe our brothers are too. Maybe it’s genetic? C’mon, get back in the car and drive.” 

“You drive.” 

“Huh?”

“I need a second. I just… you drive for a bit.”

 

\--------------------

They make better time after that, establish a routine. Dean still does most of the driving, but lets Gabriel have a turn when he’s tired. They don’t stop as often, or for as long. Looting isn’t as thrilling as the day before. 

Dean feels guilty for the first few days. All the time he spent playing around with Gabriel, wasted. It’d be easy to blame the man for their delays; Dean knows he’s capable of driving day and night, fixed only on his destination, but he also knows he's man enough to admit his own fault too. At least in his own head. If Dean hadn‘t wanted to stop, they wouldn’t have. 

\-----------

Dean dozes fitfully in passenger seat, while Gabriel drives, chewing on an old sucker stick. 

Sam is there, in Dean’s dream. A zombie, trapped forever in Stanford, moving from class to class. He dreams of his father too, reanimated in his grave, but unable to claw his way out. And about Mary, his mother, beautiful and horrible, in her delicate white night gown. Her eyes are glazed over with death as she putters around the kitchen, warming a bottle for Sam. The pot boils over, the glass bottle inside shatters and bloody pink foam froths over into the burner. The kitchen catches fire, but Mary doesn’t make a sound as she burns. 

Dean starts awake, tries to rub the scent of burning meat from his nose, and see ahead of them where yet another car is burning. It’s more smoke than flames now, but the hated smell of a killing fire is still so strong. Dean covers his nose and mouth as they pass, and Gabriel motions the sign of the cross in spite of himself. 

\-------------------

Utah is a blur of more of the same. If their mood before was jovial, it certainly isn’t anymore. They’re tense, but together in it. They don’t fight, since they’re not mad at one another, but they don’t talk as much either. Dean knows that if it were Sam with him, he’d been bugging the shit out of his brother. Annoying him slowly, or just plain picking a fight, and Sam would be doing the same, because they can do that with each other. Fight about stupid things in order to relive a bit of stress. It’s not the same with Gabriel, but it’s still somehow alright. 

They’ve just switches places again; Dean reaches for the tape player and realized with a start, that he hasn’t once turned it on since they left Lawrence. It isn’t like him not to drive without music. 

“You like ‘Zeppelin?”

“Of course.” Gabriel’s answer is almost sarcastic, as if implying how impossible it is not like Led Zeppelin. Dean feels his fondness for the man grow like a pleasant ache around his sternum. 

\-------------------------

In Nevada they start to joke with each other again, promising to raid Las Vegas once they’re duo has become a foursome. They can break into Ceaser‘s Palace, and literally burn money the casinos. 

“We should totally have a fake gay wedding Dean! I wanna get hitched by zombie Elvis.” anyone else would be dissed for saying something as machismo threatening as that, but after a week, give or take, of nothing but Gabriel-isms it barely registers. 

“Wedding? Dude, you haven’t even taken me out for coffee yet!” 

 

\-------------------------

Every mile that brings them closer to California lifts the dark clouds hovering over Dean’s mood. Every inch makes him more excited. That is, until they come to an impasse. The roads are completely congested with dead. They’re driving at a crawl, wasting gas and time, until finally Gabriel voices the impossible. 

“We can’t drive the rest of the way.” 

“No! We’re so close! I’m not leaving my baby behind!” 

“Dean-”

“No!”

“We can come back for it! Park it some place safe, it’s not like anyone is going to steal it. We can’t go on like this.” 

“Damnit!” 

It takes most of the day, but finally Dean has to give in. It’s painful, actually physically painful, for Dean to leave his baby behind. He’s only doing it for Sam. They find a nice looking house in Reno with it’s garage door still open, take as many supplies as they can carry from the car, and cover it in tarps to protect it further from the elements. 

“Dude, are you gonna cry?” 

“What? No. Shut up.”

“It’s just a car.”

“Gabriel, it is a lot of things, but it is not ‘just a car’.” 

“We’ll come back.” 

Without the bulk of the Impala it’s easier to pass through the mass of zombies. They stay close together, shoulder to shoulder, afraid to loose each other. The smell is so bad they pull their shirts up over their noses, press their hands over their faces until they can’t stand it anymore. They make a detour to steal gum from a convenience store. The strong mint flavor overwhelms their senses enough to distract from the decay, and is ruined to them forever. 

 

At last the border to California looms before them in the form of a friendly welcome sign. Dean is reminded of Topeka, but he knows that the Sunshine State will be the most difficult obstacle of all. With the largest population, growing by the second, over two hundred miles, and the San Francisco Bay all standing in their way, the task of finding their brothers feels truly daunting.

Dean hitches the strap of their duffel bag higher on his shoulder, and glances back at Gabriel. He’s peeled the old white gauze off his shoulder, and the scars are pink and new. The last couple of days have been without a doubt the most unsettling of his entire life, and Dean is damn glad to have had Gabriel with him. He doesn't think he would have made it otherwise.

“Ready?” 

“Hell yeah. Let's do this thing.” 

Side by side they cross into California, ready to take on whatever it has to throw at them.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written October 2011 for LiveJournal's Debriel Mini Bang (http://debriel-mini.livejournal.com/7767.html). There is a sequel in the works, though it's taking me longer than I had hoped it would. D:


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